Monday, May 10, 2010

For My Record -- Writing Now

A while ago, in a process much like the formation of a solar system must be, with a number of planets of varying descriptions coalescing into shape, though in this case without a sun for those planets to be constantly orbiting, some of my fantasies started forming into one novel, then two (I guess that's the way it happened; it was a long time ago), until before long I was looking at a series of novels, all having to do, to various extents, with the film world, until eventually I thought that sixteen (16!) of those conceptions would about do it, and that has held for a long while..

Of course these novels are all fated never to cross a publisher's desk, or even to be read by anyone but me.

Nevertheless, all 16 are sketched out, some completely and others not so much but still enough that I don't have to rely on my memory to know what all my intentions were and are, and two in the series have been finished for a number of years already. These are the first and the thirteenth. And two more have been so heavily filled in with complete chapters that finishing just a few more would do it. They are the third and the tenth.

Because my life is so full of a large array of interesting things to do, I don't work on this series all the time, but every few months I go back to trying to do a little here and there. Because of the coming of that most miraculous of inventions (outside the medical field), the word processor, just re-reading something on my computer(s) invariably leads to making numerous revisions and corrections, and then I'm off to the races.

Having once again read through the first finished book, the first in the series, I've gotten fired up finally to try to bite the sour apple and push on with the second, since so much of the third book is already done, and if I could finish the second, followed shortly after by the third, I could at least have a substantial "lump" of the series' outset all done. But because of its especially personal nature, that second in the series has always figured to be by far the most difficult to write.

Three days ago, on the 8th, I resolved to get serious about this -- I thought it might be time for that -- and to help me along I started my process that has worked so well in writing my large number of unpublished novels. (I have no other kind of novel to my credit, but maybe at some other time I will explain why that situation leaves me strangely withour remorse and instead often seems to be a stroke of pure luck.) That is, beginning at the beginning and ending at the end, as the characters were enjoined to do in "Alice in Wonderland," I plan to write at least three sentences every day without fail, rain, shine, or terrorist attack. That works because some days you may only write those three sentences, but other days you might write as many as 10 pages or more. And like magic, at the end of just a few months you have a complete novel on your hands -- if you never miss a day. And it also helps to take Hemingway's advice and try to always stop at a point where you can hardly wait to take it up again on the next day.

Of course, in addition to the usual dangers that await writing those minimum three sentences, there's another one that advanced age has brought, and that is forgetfulness, which never seems to want to go somewhere else and leave me be.

But I have to try. As I've said, this second will be the real toughie, and I don't even have it as fully sketched out as I do most of the others. But if I can pull this off, all the others should be big pieces of cake. Not easy pieces but still more on the halfway comfortable side.